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Dear Aggressive Facebook Status Updates

15 Aug

Dear Aggressive Facebook Status Updates,

1. To the people who are yelling about shoes: “STOP buying BOBS! They’re UGLY! And they’re not Toms!“

Oooooookay. First of all, Bobs shoes look exactly like Toms. I mean, that’s part of the complaint, right? So if you think Toms aren’t ugly, then Bobs are also not ugly. Second of all, brand loyalty is fine, but everyone does understand that it’s a personal preference, right? As in, should not be imposed on others?

Look, I get that Tom’s is a small, independent company and Skecher’s is the evil corporation, etc, etc. But any business/corporation supporting a cause you agree with is great and sure, maybe Skecher’s could have been more original about this whole thing, but isn’t part of what’s great about a competitive market system that little companies put pressure on bigger companies to behave in better ways and we as consumers get to decide before, during, and after?

And no, I don’t think the “ugly” question has been settled. But whether you think Toms are ugly or not, whether they fit your feet perfectly or not, whether you own any pairs or not, whether you support social marketing and socially conscious businesses or not….I mean, can’t we all agree that they’re LITTLE PAIRS OF SHOES MADE OF FABRIC.

They’re not as divinely mind-boggling as, say, sex or Kate Middleton’s hair or fig and carmel gelato or Ryan Gosling’s beguiling bone structure or guacamole and beer on a hot summer day.

2. To the people who post irrationally defiant “I’m complex and unique” updates, ie: “I like cooking AND baking. WHAT ABOUT IT?” or “My fantasy football team is losing. Yeah, that’s right, I’m a poet AND I watch football! So shove it.” or “Beatles or Stones while I write? Yeah, I like them both. Deal.”

You guys know none of these things are mutually exclusive, right? And that we’re all not actually cardboard mannequins and we don’t expect you to be either? And it’s rude to tell mass groups of people to “shove it” or “deal” when none of us has challenged you? We really don’t care. We really, really aren’t shocked to hear that you like hiking and knitting. And none of your “complexities” are actually that complicated. I mean, ok, hiking takes place outside, and generally knitting is an indoor activity, so I guess that is pretty wild.

3. To the cat video lovers:

Sigh. I’m not going to ask you to stop posting the videos. I’m pretty sure it’s a disorder at this point and you can’t help yourselves. And sometimes, it totally pays off to click that stupid little triangle that means “play,” aka “I’m going to devote the next x number of minutes in my life to this stupid piece of crap that will probably improve my day in a way that is completely out of proportion to what is healthy.”

But really— really— I do not have to watch that video. It is not an imperative. Telling me that I have to makes me hate you and the video and the person who posted the video and their parents for conceiving them and whatever vet did not fix that effing cat’s parents.

This video really is quite charming, though. But you don’t have to watch it! Only if you want to! Only if it makes you happy. If it helps— as far as I know, Skechers had nothing to do with this, it has a Beluga whale AND a Mariachi band and I like them both so you can DEAL with it, and I will admit that it makes me irrationally pleased.

Love,

MM

Dear Running

19 Jul

Dear Running,

First I praise myself: “Look how well you’re doing! Look at how well you’re breathing.”

Pretty soon, though, I realize I’m lying.

Then I start scolding myself: “What’s wrong with you? You have two legs and two lungs and you’ve only been running for six minutes. Grow a pair.”

Then I mock myself: “Oh, you think this is hard do you? This is too hard for you? Too hard for you? A two-year-old crawls faster than this. People run with prosthetics, and you want to sit down? Are you effing kidding me?”

Then I clear my throat, which always sounds to my own ears like I’m about to throw up, then I wonder if I’m about to throw up, then I tell myself to stop thinking about throwing up, then I focus really hard on the trees so I don’t throw up.

Then I start bargaining with myself: if I can run to the water fountain, I can stop running for as long as it takes to get a drink of water. If I finish my run all the way, I can watch trashy tv when I get home. If I finish my run without throwing up, I can have an ice cream bar after dinner.

Keep in mind these supposed “rewards” are things I was going to do anyway, would do as consolation prizes were I not to finish my run, would have done if I hadn’t gone running at all that day— ice cream after dinner is actually a reward for feeding myself dinner, not for exercising— so their motivating capacity is limited to whether or not I can keep the thought “Psh I get it no matter what!” out of my head for the two minutes it takes me to reach my goal.

This usually fails.

Then I start really bargaining with myself, aka lying: “If I finish, I can get a puppy.”

“I finish, I will win a Pulitzer.” “If I finish, I will be rich.”

Then I do it all again:

Nice Me: “If I finish, I will be so proud of myself!”

Mean Me: “Oh yeah? So proud of the fact that you ran for less than the time it takes you to shave your legs? So proud of yourself for not throwing up all over yourself like a pansy little chicken thrower-upper?”

Then the bell dings and I weep for joy.

And then I think, “I totally could have kept going. Better stick to the schedule though.”

But we both know the truth.
MM

Dear Judicial Bias

15 Jun

Dear Judicial Bias,

Yesterday’s news item that won the prize for trying the hardest to make my head explode (and no, it’s not the Republication debate!):

Prop 8 advocates appealed the ruling last year that Prop 8 was unconstitutional. Their main argument? That the judge (Judge Vaughn Walker) who presided over the case was biased because he’s in a long-term relationship with a same-sex partner. And therefore stands to gain if gay marriage is legal. And therefore is unfit to judge the case. Because he’s biased. Because he’s gay.

In the end, the judge who heard the appeal (U.S. Chief District Judge James Ware) upheld Walker’s ruling, saying that bias can not be presumed (Seattle Times “Chief judge upholds ruling in same-sex-marriage case” A2 6/15/2011) (I would link to the online article but the headline is wrong and it’s just confusing):

The presumption that Judge Walker, by virtue of being in a same-sex relationship, had a desire to be married that rendered him incapable of making an impartial decision, is as warrantless as the presumption that a female judge is incapable of being impartial in a case in which women seek legal relief. On the contrary, it is reasonable to presume that a female judge or a judge in a same-sex relationship is capable of rising above any personal predisposition and deciding such a case on the merits.” —Judge Ware

Well, yes. Hard to argue with, in my mind.

On the other hand, Ware could have gone for the even closer comparison— the question no one seems to be asking…. which is that, hypothetically, if all gay judges are biased, then aren’t all heterosexual judges biased too? All those straight judges who have ruled against gay marriage across the United States— shouldn’t we be questioning their motives as well? (No, we should not.)

I am not saying I think this is true. I do not advocate bringing judges’ personal lives (or sexual orientation) into the courtroom. I’m just saying– slippery slope, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, back that appeals truck up, etc, etc.

And dear god, people, I don’t necessarily think the Enlightenment is the end-all be-all, but some elements of its advocacy of reason and rational thought sure could use a dusting off in the sphere of American public debate.

Sigh,

MM

Dear Plant Owners in Seattle

15 Jun

Dear Plant Owners in Seattle,

As in, all of you, because there are plants everywhere here…Maybe don’t water your plants? Since it rains every 3-4 days here?

And I keep hearing things about precious freshwater resources and stuff?

Yeah. Just a thought.

Love,

MM

PS— it’s really pretty here.

Dear Guy in the Coffeeshop

8 Jun

Dear Guy in the Coffeeshop,

It’s super sweet that you like Russian literature. I can imagine that it’s not often you overhear it being discussed in a coffeeshop (although, since you’re in Seattle, visit enough coffeeshops and you’ll run into enough graduate students and literati and you’re bound to find some Cossackophiles* in the pile).

And yes, I sometimes wish that coffeeshops actually were the community centers that we claim them to be. Perhaps they were friendly public spaces prior to the days of laptops and personal listening devices, good for meeting new friends and potential dates. And really, obviously I am asking for someone to start a conversation if I’m going to haul out Nabokov’s Selected Letters and flash it around like some sort of merit badge of intelligenstia. (God I’m making myself sick to my stomach right now, it really is for a research project, I promise.)

And often, I really am so happy to talk about the book that I’m reading, or the book that you’re reading, or the books that we both ought to be reading.

BUT. UMMM….if I am with a friend, and we’ve been chatting, then when you talk to me, you BREAK THE ILLUSION that no one can hear my embarrassing (but highly amusing!) stories that I am telling to said friend.

If you can hear me talking about Russian literature, then you also just heard me mangle the pronunciation of “lyre” and you heard my friend tell a joke about a class she took once which culminated in a middle-aged woman shouting PENIS, which, while an accurate identification of the literary symbol found in the text, was not the rather more gentle answer of “phallic symbol” that the professor was looking for.

None of which is PARTICULARLY a problem, but only because I got lucky. That is tame compared to the things I sometimes say in public and the personal problems I sometimes discuss with friends over coffee. You don’t even want to know what happens when I talk about the time I had whooping cough (I do an impression of myself coughing while naked that would make Jerry Seinfeld want to curl up and die), or hear me analyze what I consider to be the political and social implications of hair removal, and yes, sometimes friends talk about their sexual mishaps over lattes, it happens (have you ever thrown up on a guy’s dick? It turns out, one friend tells me this story about a friend of hers, I tell another friend, she has a friend of a friend who…. everyone knows someone! It’s like six degrees of sexual upchuck! I’m thinking about starting an anthology. It’ll be called, You Really Don’t Want to Do That After I’ve Had a Full Meal and a Few Glasses of Beer).**

And look, I’m a rational person, I know I’m in a public place, I can see how close your table is to mine, but I would like to pretend you can’t hear me, okay? It’s like when you go for a gynecology exam and they give you a gown and a towel. So that your belly button will stay modest? I don’t even know. If you’re going to have your hands in my business, I don’t really care if you see my stomach or exposed elbows. And yet– somehow, that stupid-ass gown (or stupid ass-gown) does help you feel protected, hanging out for an interminable amount of time waiting for the doctor pretending that you always read US Weekly naked as a bluejay while sitting on paper, as if you’re some sort of deranged hyper-intelligent puppy (smart enough to read and yet still being potty-trained. Sigh).

So yes, while I know you can hear me, it’s quite another thing to be confronted with it, and dear god, surely it’s not interesting to hear me go on about whether to cut my hair a few inches shorter (I’m going to), but it’s still none of your damn business whether I actually completed my fifteen minute run this morning (I did not, thankyouverymuch).

And no, I don’t have a favorite Tolstoy short story. But I can tell you that Russian scholars will just as often translate it as Tolstoi, and Mandelstam preferred the transliteration of his name without the “h” that you so commonly see it with (Mandelshtam) and that Gorky made up most of the encounters found in his Literary Portraits. (Academia is a special kind of useless trivia hell and won’t someone invite me to a cocktail party? I can tell you all about Nabokov’s synesthesia.)

And I’ll thank you kindly to forget that one other thing I said about that thing, if you know what I mean.

Love,

MM

*Cossackophiles: what sort of definition would you come up with if that word appeared in Balderdash? DIRTY, RIGHT?

**NOT ME. Mom, just avert your eyes and pretend you never read that.

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